Little League and Lemonade (English assignment 2013)

 My red and beige bungalow-style house was a place I retreated to rest my head at night, and stop in for an occasional meal. The Burkhart's, who lived next door, lived in the same little house, only in a grayish blue edition. We called it the Burkharts' although there were only two Burkhart's that lived there, the two girls, who had been conveniently placed there in a custody arrangement. The houses were reflections of each other, so that our garages and bedroom windows were only separated by the space that righteously belonged to both families.

It was mid- August, and all the tourists that occupied our neighborhood parking spaces and local hotels were filing out in the masses. It got tiresome, but we enjoyed these foreigners on our turf. People from all over the world came to Howard J. Lamade Stadium to watch the Little League World Series. They made our homes feel special, like our neighborhood was an exotic vacation spot. I used to go down to the stadium with my brother to watch the games, but Japan had won so many years in a row that it got boring to watch. Instead, he, Lindsay, Amber (the Burkharts), and I set up a cheap fold-up table in between our front yards, with a cardboard box that read "Lemonade" in black marker.

The stale August heat had made our lemonade stand unnaturally appealing. Or maybe it was the the traffic that conveniently let hundreds of cars sit  in front of us for hours. Either way, our sales were outrageous. We mixed and served the thick, sweet juice into pitchers, and then transferred it to little paper cups that we'd stolen from our pantries. We'd weave around the motionless cars, advertising, "50 cents a cup!" Out of severe dehydration, or pity, or because they all had children of their own who put up stands at home, people drank our lemonade.

At dusk, when the streets of South Williamsport were bare again, and quiet, our business was over. We made about forty dollars that day, and each went home with ten. I stuck my head out of my second story bedroom window at night to talk to Lindsay about how we'd spend our new found wealth. New bikes, roller blades, dolls? The possibilities were endless.